The Skillman Foundation

The Skillman Foundation, located in Detroit, MI, is committed to improving the lives of Detroit children. The Foundation is a private, place-based foundation organized to help expand educational and economic opportunities for Detroit youth. We believe that when Detroit children thrive, Detroit thrives. For more information, visit www.skillman.org.

The Foundation is seeking a Director of Evaluation, Learning & Impact who will work collaboratively with Foundation staff to design and implement a coordinated and comprehensive evaluation, performance monitoring, learning and communications plan that advances the Foundation’s Opportunity Agenda for Detroit Children. The Director of Evaluation, Learning & Impact will facilitate learning and thinking, and encourage a culture of candor, accountability and innovation. This role reports to the Senior Director, Office of the President.

Duties and responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Design, manage and provide quality control, review and dissemination of findings. Work with program staff and leadership to identify evaluation questions; create RFP; select national and local consultants; oversee design and implementation; review data and preliminary findings; and vet with staff and grant partners as appropriate. Keep abreast of developments in the field to ensure the Foundation employs the best evaluation and organizational learning strategies.
• Create, implement and analyze performance monitoring data including dashboards. Work with staff to develop performance goals, develop and monitor data collection and quality, and ensure that reliable data is available annually.
• Create the data infrastructure required for ongoing monitoring, evaluation and learning to strengthen strategy and implementation.
• Coach and support the Program team to use evaluation to drive results and refine the Foundation’s strategies.
• Partner with the Grants Management team to implement and integrate evaluation metrics and grant partner reporting with Fluxx impact module.
• Actively participate in a communication/evaluation learning workgroup. Identify data and information plan to be implemented through social media and print. Make data available and review content.
• Create and implement an organizational learning agenda.
• Train, supervise, and mentor Learning & Impact Fellow.
• Perform other special projects, as needed.

Qualifications for the Director of Evaluation, Learning & Impact:

• Master’s degree required with substantial prior experience leading and managing evaluation and learning activities in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial philanthropic environment with a focus on metrics and data-driven decision making.
• Experience in developing an organizational results-oriented learning culture. Experience in selecting and working with external evaluators, managing a portfolio of strategic evaluations, working closely with staff to assure that the evaluations provide quality, useful and timely information.
• Experience implementing and managing a broad variety of qualitative and quantitative evaluation projects and knowledge of data analysis techniques.
• Experience in creating an organizational performance monitoring system.
• Broad knowledge of content and evaluation strategies in education, youth development, community capacity building, and policy and systems change.
• Exceptional project management, prioritization and planning skills, with demonstrated success producing high-quality deliverables on time and within budget.
• Excellent people management and employee development skills.
• Strong interpersonal skills and ability to work effectively in a team.
• Demonstrated written and oral communication skills for a diverse audience.
• Ability to process large amounts of complex information and present concise conclusions drawn from this information to a variety of audiences.

This position is a full-time salaried position. The Skillman Foundation offers competitive salary offerings and excellent benefits that include medical, dental, vision, flexible spending accounts, 401k (with a match), life insurance, and disability coverage. If you are interested, please send a cover letter and resume to hr@skillman.org no later than Thursday, March 1, 2018. No phone calls please.

The Skillman Foundation is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer.